J.R Schnabel rode the race of his life to snatch victory from Carr at Saturday night's short track, making the pass in the final corner on the final lap. On Sunday, Chris consulted his notebook of Springfield Mile last lap moves and pulled out another trick, winning the race by inches over Johnny Murphree.
Carr's lead is now forty points with three races left. He can theoretically clinch the title in two week's time at Scioto Downs in Columbus, Ohio.
"Started the night off pretty good, I guess we were one of the fastest, if the not the fastest ones in just about every session. The track was really, really racy. It was probably the smoothest it has been and the most consistent it's been since we've been there. It wasn't quite as off camber as it normally is, because they actually built the outside of the race track up a little bit, so instead of racing where it was off camber, it was almost a flat track. It had a little bit of negative camber coming off turn two, maybe a little bit off of four. So that was nice. They did a great job with it.
"In my scratch heat, R.J. Overholt got the holeshot, and it took me about two laps to run around the outside and get by him. I moved on away from him after that, and I think we were the second fastest heat. Schnabel was on the pole.
"We went out and got a holeshot in the first heat, led that wire to wire and had the fastest heat race. So it was looking good, sitting on the front row, Kopp was over four or five spots to my right, so I had a decent spot for the main event. I didn't get off the line all that well - sometimes those motocross bikes can squirt off the line better than the flat track bikes - got off the line third behind (Henry) Wiles and Schnabel, and I made an inside move on Schnabel through three and four about the third or fourth lap. A couple laps later, I too about a half a lap to do the same thing to get by Henry Wiles. From what everybody said, it sounded like I moved away from them about twenty bike lengths or something like that.
"Schnabel gave it his all, from what I hear. He about crashed the thing three times in attempts to run me down, and I probably got a little conservative toward the end. The combination of him going for it and not having anything to lose and me getting a little bit over-defensive, he was able to put one heckuva pass on me on the last lap going through three and four. I almost got back by him at the line, but I think my front wheel was at about his axle when we crossed the stripe. The crowd definitely got their money's worth, they raised the roof on the place. Hopefully it will bring many more people there next year. It was a good night for the championship, and for us."
You rode your Rotax framer. Were there many other Rotaxes out there?
"I was on the framer, Kopp was on a framer, he got tenth. Everybody else in the top ten were on motocross bikes. Greg Tysor was in the main on a framer, and Bryan Smith was on a framer, there may have been one more, I can't recall right now, so it was definitely dominated by the motocross bikes numbers-wise, but I really don't think there was that much of an advantage. I think a lot of people now are going with what they're most comfortable with, not necessarily with what they're the fastest on. I think we're seeing that more and more, which is a good thing. I did run my KTM in practice, and I felt good on it, but I was just faster on the Rotax. I was actually more comfortable on the framer. (The KTM) was fairly easy to ride, but we've got a little bit more work to do to pick the bottom end power numbers up on (the KTM) to get it to come off the corners a little better than it has been. It was certainly easy to ride, it went around the corners okay, it just wasn't fast. So we chose the Rotax. "
"Same thing in the heat race. I had a great heat race. If you look at the results, I got a measure of two guys that were running up front. One, my teammate Willie McCoy, who finished fourth in the main event, and Johnny Murphree, who finished second in the main event - I got to race against both those guys, so I had a lot of laps with some of the guys up front as the day wore on, and that's always good to be able have that kind of information and have laps other than just the main event to judge how you're doing against these guys. Johnny got the better of me in the heat race, he drafted me to the line, beat me by about six inches, so we were sitting pretty good, we didn't make any changes for the main event whatsoever. We felt confident with what we had. It was just a matter of playing the drafting war/game a little better in the main event, so were set after the heat race to go run 'em down.
"Our heat race was third fastest, so I picked the outside spot on the second row, so I could get a run on some guys going into the corner hopefully, and we got off the line about seventh or eighth and methodically picked our way toward the front. The pace for the main event was about a second or more a lap slower than it was in the heat race, so I knew tires weren't going to be an issue. I charged to the front and got there as quickly as I could and made a run to the lead and had a one-on-one battle with Rich King for about three or four laps. I got to the front so that I could press the pace. I wanted to up it a little bit and see who we had to deal with later on.
"Before I knew it, nobody was coming back by me. I'd made a little mini-break and pulled out a ten or fifteen bike length lead from what they said, and it went that way for about seven or eight laps, maybe more than that. I know I led thirteen of the twenty-five laps during the main event, so I was like, 'Man where are these guys?' I took a couple of peeks back and I didn't have a big gap, but I looked back one time and it looked like fifteen bike lengths, and another time ten, and before you know it, around lap nineteen or twenty, the guys caught back up and Murphree came charging back by going into turn three, the race was on at that point.
"I had dropped back as far as fifth on about lap twenty-one or two - (Kevin) Atherton had got back up in there, and Murphree and Willie McCoy and Springer were the guys that had passed me at one time or another once the pack caught back up. I inched my way back forward and put myself in a really good position going into turn one after the white flag - Coolbeth was leading, Murphree was second, and I was running third. Murphree let Coolbeth get a little bit of a gap so he could make a run at him going down the back stretch, and I was able to get by Johnny - I think he gave up a little bit too much room - I was able to get by Johnny going into turn three. He had set me up for a perfect draft pass to the line to beat Coolbeth. I won by about half-a-bike length. It was an awesome day for the Quality-Checked Certified Pre-Owned Ford Team. "